Lingchi
by River of Oblivion
Summary: She is torn to pieces, a mass of a thousand different cuts no one can see.


_Disclaimer: I do not own the 100 or anything associated with this awesome show._

* * *

_"a wind has blown the rain away and blown_

_the sky away and all the leaves away,_

_and the trees stand. I think i too have known_

_autumn too long."_

_\- e.e. Cummings_

* * *

There is a bitter thought she carries with her from the tomb of the mountain: maybe the world has never been black and white; all she can see is gray and blood blood red.

* * *

She is torn to pieces, a mass of a thousand different cuts that no one can see, some self-inflicted, some not. She is dying inside and she hides it and pushes it deep down inside until her mission is complete.

The butterfly girl who has turned into a warrior watches her with cold eyes, and she feels the sting of hot ash and the burning of smoke in her lungs.

The boy with(out) the goggles can't even meet her eyes, and she sees a pretty girl with a melted face, and dozens of small bodies that will never move again.

These wounds are fresh, and they bleed and bleed, like the gentle boy's chest when she pushed the knife into his heart, like her mother's legs where metal drilled into bone.

When she sees the gates, grief fills her lungs and she fights to inhale anything that will keep her from drowning in it.

This has never been her home, and now she's not sure it ever can be. The people inside, the people she saved, they are rainwater on withered flowers, warm sun on frozen ground; they are life and hope and redemption. Even if there are no good guys, they come the closest to deserving that title.

They still have lines they haven't crossed.

She doesn't belong with them anymore.

Her people, _their_ people trudge, limp, and drag themselves into the camp, looking every bit the prisoners of war they are, and she marks their admission to safety with sorrow and satisfaction.

The boy whose intellect she wielded as a weapon is suddenly standing in front of her and the despondent look in his eyes is like salt on her wounds. She pulls him close and whispers that she's sorry.

Sorry for not opening the doors when she first stole the key card.

Sorry for leaving him behind to suffer.

Sorry for being the earthquake that opened a chasm between him and the boy he considered a brother.

It isn't enough, but he forgives her anyway. As he walks away, she waits for a balm to soothe one of the stinging marks on her soul.

It doesn't come.

There is movement at the gate, and it's _him_, haunted and weary but still golden in the sunlight.

She had been wrong before; _he_ sees.

Of course he does; they are twin souls, tested by the same fires. She had once regarded him warily, this boy-king, back when she was a princess who knew best how to rule a kingdom. Now she has broken all her laws, and he will have to be the one to put their people back together again.

He claims they share an equal blame, but she knows better.

She will be remembered like one of _his _legends, the ruthless leader in a brutal tale full of war and deception and betrayal.

And oh how she wishes to become nothing, because becoming nothing is better than becoming death.

But she will gladly carry the weight of the Mountain, the guilt and blame and fear, if it means he can walk with a lighter load on his shoulders.

He will be remembered as a hero, and after surviving her senseless attempts to sacrifice him for the greater good, he is due more adulation than he can receive in a lifetime.

History will remember them differently.

She will make sure of it.

* * *

The ground is wide and dangerous, and the wind touches more places than she could hope to see in one lifetime. She does not know where she will go, but she knows she will never truly be lost.

Her compass may be broken, but he is her true North.

* * *

Cold lips burn when they touch his cheek. She breathes him in and thinks maybe he could give her enough oxygen to keep her head above the water.

But she knows he would give and give, and she would take and take, sucking him down into the depths with her. She will not play Charybdis to his Odysseus, pulling at the weary soldier's ship instead of letting him sail safely home.

So she sets him free before she can change her mind, leaving him with their traditional phrase of parting, never meaning those beautiful words more than now.

_May We Meet Again._


End file.
